Something to ponder upon

Sometimes I just wonder,why is the medical school recruit so many medical students in a batch,when they know that it is better to teach them in a smaller group.

I believe that when you teach in a smaller group,the lecturer will pay more attention to each and every student's daily learning progression,and can rectify their mistakes if there is any mistakes were made.Also,Students will tend to be more proactive in the discussion session,at least for me.They will also have more hands on experience when learning in the ward. With that,more quality doctors can be produced in the country. I remember there is one saying by William Osler, "you have to use all of your 5 senses to treat a patient'.I couldn't agree more than that,but how on earth can we learn when there are so many 'space occupying lesions' in the ward trying to examine on one Poor patient or following the ward round where the specialist is so far away that you need to learn lips movement language in order to know what is happening?

Unfortunately,it is happening in the medical schools these days,at least in my batch.There are 97 of us,and sometimes we can have 15 person in one case presentation and discussion session.This means that there are 15 people will try to examine on a poor patient in order to learn to identify the clinical findings.Seriously,this is not only affecting the learning process,but also the patient himself will get disturbed with all these.Imagine you are the one who being palpated for 10 times by 10 different people,or there are 7 stethoscopes being put on your chest at a same time.Sound ridiculous isn't it?

I have seen one Young female patient,diagnosed to have stroke secondary to valvular heart disease,was shivering in cold but yet still need to let bunch of the medical student to be examined on her chest one by one,and yet she cannot voice out as she has global aphasia.

Every time I have his kind of situation,I feel upset and I choose to walk away even though the patient exhibits very good clinical signs to learn from.(Of course I will come back to examine the patient later on if it's really a good sign :P).

Is this kind of scenario happening
In your clinical setting as well?